Charles C. Selecman papers

A Guide to the Collection

This collection holds the papers of Charles C. Selecman, the third president of Southern Methodist University. Selecman, a Methodist minister, served as university president from 1923 to 1938, and the bulk of the material comes from that period. The papers include biographical material on Selecman, essays and speeches, correspondence with SMU faculty members, administrative records, SMU publications, material on Methodist and African American colleges in Texas, and Methodist church-related pamphlets.

Born on October 13, 1874 on a farm near Savannah, Missouri to Isaac Henry and Josephine Smith Selecman, Charles Selecman entered Central College in Fayette, Missouri in 1892. He quarterbacked the school’s football team for four seasons and was undefeated as a sprinter on the track team. In 1898, at the age of 24, Selecman began pastoring in a church in Pattensburg, Missouri, dropping out of college two months before graduation to do so. Here he met Bess Kyle Beckner, whom he married on April 27, 1899.
They subsequently had two children: Frank and Josephine. After serving in several locations in Missouri as pastor and circuit rider, Selecman engaged in "home mission work" in Louisiana and Missouri before being appointed pastor of a church in Los Angeles, California in 1913. In 1920 he was called to the First Methodist Church, South, in Dallas, Texas. He became president of Southern Methodist University in March 1923.

During Selecman’s fifteen years at the helm of SMU, the school grew despite the financial struggle brought on by the Great Depression. At the beginning of his term the campus had two permanent buildings and an endowment of $883,000. By 1938 the school had eleven buildings and an endowment of $2,300,000. In 1923 SMU was a liberal arts college with a seminary and music school. A decade and a half later the university boasted schools of engineering, law, education, and business, as well as graduate programs.
Research and scholarly output also increased during the period. In 1924 the university acquired the Southwest Review, a literary magazine, from the University of Texas. In 1932 the departments of geology, geography, physics, biology, and chemistry began publishing Field and Laboratory, a semiannual journal. In 1937 the school established its own publishing press.

Early in his tenure, Selecman outlined his vision for SMU. He desired a high standard of scholarship, a "warm religious atmosphere," and a "conservative, yet progressive, business policy." The school, he said, needed to maintain an atmosphere that would enable students to develop "Christian faith," a chaste character, and the quality of selfless service. "We shall make our largest contribution to civilization," he said, "by training men and women who will be leaders in Christian thought."
A short time later, he explained that all the work of SMU is "aimed to prepare trained leadership for the social, commercial, and religious life of the Southwest."

During the Selecman administration, relations between the faculty and the president were often tense. Professors expressed uncertainty about Selecman as a university president because he did not possess a bachelor’s degree, and their vision of what SMU should become often differed from his. Selecman also found himself thrown in to the church-wide controversy between religious fundamentalism and modernism as it played out at the university among faculty members.
Controversy also swirled around athletics, especially football, as well as the question of who should control the school: the Methodist Church, or Dallas businessmen. But perhaps the most controversial aspect of Selecman’s tenure was the reduction in staff personnel and the salary cuts prompted by the onset of the Great Depression. In May 1931, 41 professors signed a petition opposing Selecman in what subsequently became known as "The Faculty Rebellion of 1931."

In May 1938, Selecman was elected to the office of Bishop in the Methodist Church. He resigned as university president, effective the following September, to take up his position as the bishop in charge of the Oklahoma Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In 1943, while the Selecmans resided in Oklahoma City, headquarters of the conference, Bishop Selecman’s wife Bess died. In 1944 Selecman returned to Dallas to head the North Texas Conference.
In 1945, he was elected president of the Council of Bishops of the Methodist Church, the denomination’s highest ranking office. He held this position for one year. Two months after this appointment, in July 1945, Selecman married "Mrs. Pierre D. Mason of Hollywood, California," according to the newspapers. Selecman simply called her Jackie. In June 1948 Bishop Selecman retired from the episcopacy. In 1951, he was elected to the Methodist Hall of Fame in philanthropy. He died on March 27, 1958 at age 83.

The Selecman papers consist of biographical material, articles and addresses by Selecman, correspondence between President Selecman and university personnel, presidential reports, issues of the alumni magazine circa.
1920s, a ledger containing a list of individuals who applied to SMU for graduate work, essays and printed programs honoring Selecman, financial and fundraising records, an African American student’s application to attend SMU coupled with a rejection notice,
pamphlets produced by the Methodist Church, printed programs from Church conferences, correspondence between Selecman and administrators of Texas College, Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College, Texas Women’s College, and Texas Wesleyan College, with a printed program from Southwestern University dated 1942. The collection also contains newspaper clippings and personal items unrelated to his career.

According to retired history professor Herbert P. Gambrell, Selecman’s secretary – a Mrs. Hawkins – informed him that, upon retiring as bishop in 1948, Selecman removed from his files almost everything regarding his term as president of SMU.

Jackie Selecman, Charles Selecman’s widow, donated "scrapbooks and other memorabilia" relating to his tenure as SMU president to the university in 1967. Months after her death in 1968, university archivist Ronald C. Knickerbocker wrote to Frank Selecman and Josephine Selecman Forbes soliciting additional donations of their father’s papers. At the time, according to Frank, President Selecman’s files were in the possession of Josephine.

Jackie Selecman, Charles Selecman’s widow, donated "scrapbooks and other memorabilia" relating to his tenure as SMU president to the university in 1967. Months after her death in 1968, university archivist Ronald C. Knickerbocker wrote to Frank Selecman and Josephine Selecman Forbes soliciting additional donations of their father’s papers. At the time, according to Frank, President Selecman’s files were in the possession of Josephine.